Scott Morrison is an Australian conservative politician who became a leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister of Australia in August 2018 following a challenge by the right wing of the party to the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull, who stepped down as party leader and prime minister.
Background
Morrison was born in Waverley, Sydney, New South Wales, the younger of two sons born to Marion (née Smith) and John Morrison. His father was a policeman who served on the Waverley Municipal Council for 16 years, including for a brief period as mayor. Morrison's maternal grandfather was born in New Zealand.
Education
He attended Sydney Boys High School before going on to complete an honors degree in applied economic geography at the University of New South Wales. He contemplated studying theology at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada, but he instead chose to enter the workforce after completing his bachelor's degree, in part due to the disapproval of his father.
Career
Morrison’s political career began at age 9 distributing “how-to-vote” cards in support of his father. During his childhood, Morrison also acted in television commercials.
Following graduation, he began working for industry organizations, including the Property Council of Australia. It was in the tourism industry that Morrison made his mark, beginning with a stint at the Tourism Task Force before becoming the general manager of the Tourism Council of Australia (1996–98). In 1998 Morrison and his wife, Jenny whom he had met through the church as a youth and married at age 21 relocated to New Zealand. There he became the director of the New Zealand Office of Tourism and Sport (1998–2000), for which he oversaw the hugely successful “Pure New Zealand” tourism campaign.
Returning to Australia, Morrison began his political career by becoming the state director of the New South Wales Liberal Party (2000–04). He guided the party into the 2001 federal election and the 2003 state campaign. Although he was unable to return the Liberals to power in New South Wales, he helped reenergize the party and contributed to the Liberal-National coalition’s taking three seats away from the Labor Party in the federal House of Representatives in 2001.
In 2004 Morrison was appointed the chief executive of the newly created Tourism Australia, the government agency dedicated to attracting foreign visitors to Australia. In 2006 Morrison oversaw a successful but controversial advertising campaign that hinged on the question “Where the bloody hell are you?” posed in a television commercial by bikini-wearing soon-to-be-famous model Lara Bingle. The campaign was banned in traditional media by the British Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre for its use of the word bloody, but that prohibition only served to send curious Britons in search of the Internet version of the ad. Moreover, the controversy stimulated the success of the campaign in the U.S. and German markets. The criticism of the campaign as too risqué was ironic given Morrison’s devout Pentecostal faith and socially conservative outlook. Morrison also butted heads with Tourism Australia’s governing board and Minister of Tourism Fran Bailey, largely because of their perception that his management of the organization lacked transparency. Ultimately, in 2006, he left the post through an “agreed separation” that reportedly came with a big payout for Morrison.
Morrison turned his attention to elected office in 2007 and sought the Liberal Party’s selection as its candidate for the safe seat in the House of Representatives representing Cook, a district in south suburban Sydney. Morrison was soundly defeated for selection, but when his victorious opponent became the target of a mendacious smear campaign and was forced to step down, Morrison was chosen as a unity candidate. He then won the general election. In his maiden speech to the House, Morrison styled himself as a moderate, invoking the memory of 19th-century British abolitionist William Wilberforce, celebrating the human rights contributions of South African civil rights leader Desmond Tutu and U2 singer Bono, and nodding to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s formal apology to the Australian Aboriginal peoples.
Seeing Morrison as a kindred moderate, then Liberal Party leader Turnbull appointed him shadow spokesperson for housing and local government in 2008. When Tony Abbott displaced Turnbull as the leader in 2009 and pushed the party rightward, Morrison seemingly underwent an ideological conversion and tacked right himself, earning the post of shadow minister for immigration and citizenship, along with an incipient reputation as an ambitious, opportunistic political chameleon. As shadow immigration minister, he used the terse advertising-like slogan “Stop the Boats” to attack the Labor government’s handling of the waterborne influx of asylum seekers from Indonesian ports. In 2011 Morrison was harshly critical of the government for paying to fly relatives to the funerals of asylum seekers lost in the sinking of a boat near Christmas Island. That stance was greeted with approbation by a number of prominent Liberal Party leaders, but while Morrison apologized for the timing of his response, he did not recant.
As minister for immigration and border control in the Abbott government that was elected in 2013, Morrison oversaw Operation Sovereign Borders, the military-led effort that sought to halt immigration by turning back into Indonesian waters the small boats carrying asylum seekers or transporting them to detention centers on Nauru and Manus Island. Although the policy was criticized by human rights groups, it successfully stemmed the tide of illegal immigration. Morrison prided himself on his defense of Australia’s border, but he also rationalized the draconian approach by arguing that it protected asylum seekers by deterring exploitative smugglers from exposing them to the dangerous journey. In December 2014 Morrison switched portfolios, becoming minister for social services.
Morrison supported Turnbull in the September 2015 “spill” (leadership challenge), in which the former leader regained control of the party from Abbott. His backing of Turnbull earned Morrison the powerful post of treasurer. In that capacity, he both oversaw a robust Australian economy and re-softened his image. True to his religious and social conservatism, Morrison was a prominent opponent of same-sex marriage, but he strategically abstained in the House vote in December 2017 that resulted in legalization. Morrison remained loyal to Turnbull when a challenge was mounted to his leadership of the party in August 2018 by Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton. Turnbull survived one vote on his leadership, but the party’s right wing was quickly able to compel his resignation. Dutton, however, fell short of the support needed to replace Turnbull as the party turned instead to Morrison as a compromise choice and elected him the leader. On August 24 he became Australia’s 30th prime minister.
Religion
Morrison was raised in the Presbyterian Church, which partly merged into the Uniting Church when he was a child. He later became a Pentecostal, and now attends the Horizon Church, which is affiliated with the Australian Christian Churches and the Assemblies of God. He has said, "the Bible is not a policy handbook, and I get very worried when people try to treat it like one."
In late 2017, Morrison stated that he would become a stronger advocate for protections for religious freedom.
He mentions the church as his number-one hobby.
Politics
To become Liberal candidate for Cook in 2007, he lost the preselection ballot, 82 votes to 8, to Michael Towke, a telecommunications engineer and the candidate of the Liberals’ right faction. However, allegations emerged that Towke had engaged in branch stacking and embellished his resume. The Liberal Party’s state executive disendorsed Towke and Morrison won the pre-selection. Later, the allegations against Towke were disproved and Sydney’s Daily Telegraph was successfully sued by Towke.
During his more than ten years in the parliament, the Prime Minister has established a reputation as a passionate advocate for his local community as well as a proven fixer for difficult policy problems in three senior Cabinet portfolios.
Views
Morrison was an opponent of legalizing same-sex marriage. After the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, he proposed an amendment to the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017 allowing parents to remove children from classes if "non-traditional" marriage is discussed. All amendments failed, and Morrison abstained from voting on the final bill.
Membership
He was a member of the Australian Parliament for Cook.
Personality
He is a fan of the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks rugby league team and, in 2016, was named the club's number-one ticket holder.
Quotes from others about the person
Veteran Canberra journalist Laurie Oakes once said on television that the government “should avoid the goading and arrogance of Scott Morrison, where he just pours mullock on journalists”. Oakes added that his attitude towards journalists was disgusting. “When people like Scott Morrison give us the finger when we ask tough questions, we’ve got to shine a light on that and expose it because it’s not acceptable.”
The BBC’s Nick Bryant ungenerously wrote: “My hunch is that Scott Morrison doesn’t spend much time agonising over the contradictions that have marked his career, or fretting about the veering course of a political journey that has taken him from the moderate wing of the party, to the right. The main point for him is that his career has been heading in an ever-upward trajectory.”
Connections
He met his wife, Jenny, at church, aged just 12. She had grown up in the St George area of South Sydney, solid battler territory, and would tease Scott about coming from the posh side of town.
They married 14 January 1990, when they were 21, and have two daughters together. After multiple unsuccessful IVF treatments over a period of 18 years, their daughters were conceived naturally. His daughters attend an independent Baptist school. Morrison has stated that one of the reasons for this choice was so that he could avoid "the values of others being imposed on my children."